


Romancing the Ash

by Acanthus_Addams



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 18:20:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18643531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acanthus_Addams/pseuds/Acanthus_Addams
Summary: Tired of waiting around for him to notice her, Misty decides to take advantage of Ash's cluelessness about romance and give him an over-the-top, cliché-filled evening he'll never forget. Pokéshipping.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Think of this as a kind of two-part oneshot - a 'twoshot', if you will, or, at the very least, a oneshot with a little introductory chapter. Part Two is the main part of the story, and is quite a bit longer as a result.

In the soft evening glow of the Ketchum residence's cosy living room, two squabbling teenagers sat at opposite ends of a large sofa, blocking each other from view like a pair of pouting children.

"I just don't get any of this," the boy at the left end groaned towards the television.

"Ash, will you shut up already?!" exclaimed the girl on the right. "I haven't heard a word of this since I put it on!"

Ash lowered his hand from his face and looked around to face her. "How can you watch this stuff, Misty?" he asked in disgust. "It's garbage and you know it."

"No it's not, it's lovely!" she retorted, also turning to face him. "This is the part where Edwin and Ophelia reunite after years, and he gives her a pokéball that has a diamond engagement ring inside! Oh, I'm choking up just thinking about it!"

As she expected, however, the boy just shrugged. "Waste of a pokéball if you ask me," he muttered. "I'd have used it to catch that articuno they rode to the palace a while ago."

Misty poked him hard in the chest, gasping smugly. "Aha, so you _have_ been watching it!"

"Chaa!" squeaked Pikachu as he and Azurill hopped up and down excitedly on the cushion between their two masters.

Ash scratched sheepishly at the hair beneath his cap. "I have not!" he huffed. "I just, er, looked up when that bit was on, that's all."

"Oh yeah, sure," she mocked before turning back to the TV. About a minute of quiet passed, allowing Misty to briefly re-immerse herself in the soupy atmosphere of the scene before her – that was, until another snarky comment inevitably made its way over to her ears.

"This is dumb," Ash grumbled. "Why is everything always so lovey-dovey in these kinds of things?"

It was at times like these when someone listening in on their arguing would usually say to Misty, "Just ignore him and maybe he'll stop"; she wondered if, one day, she would actually listen to their advice.

"Ash, love is like an art form," she began, her impatient tone gradually giving way to one of hazy, dream-like infatuation, "and an art form must be expressed as perfectly and as beautifully as possible, which is why we have masterpieces like this." She pointed towards the TV screen.

"They don't just cram it in for the sake of it. I think love stories are sometimes crucial to a good work of art. You ought to know, you've starred in some yourself."

Ash raised an eyebrow. "I have?" he said blankly.

Misty pulled her legs up onto the sofa, resting her chin on her knees. "Of course you have, stupid," she said. "Remember when we helped Cleavon Schpielbunk shoot that movie about the two pokémon in love, the one he flew us all the way out to Hollywood just to see?"

"Oh yeah…" he slowly recalled, a process that ended with a dramatic snort of laughter. "Wait, you're calling that piece of trash a work of art? I've seen more artful things come out of my snorlax! And besides, we weren't even in it, remember? Our scenes were cut!"

The young redhead chuckled bashfully. "Okay…bad example. But what about the radio drama we did in Johto where you played Prince Goldenrod?"

"What about it?"

"Don't you think that was leading somewhere before Team Rocket sabotaged it? Somewhere…romantic?"

"Not really," the puzzled boy admitted.

"Oh come on, it was almost exactly like this movie here!" She gestured towards the TV once again. "The main character strolls onto the scene, saves the day, then gets the girl at the end; it's a classic formula!"

Yet, Ash just smirked, shaking his head dismissively. "That's ridiculous, Misty," he eventually said. "There were only two female characters in that radio thing. Who were they gonna pair me up with? Jessie? As if!"

Misty's face fell, and she quickly looked away to cover up the embarrassment burning in her cheeks.

"Never mind." She sighed emotionlessly, prompting another look of confusion from the pokémon trainer. A few seconds later, she added with another sigh, "Honestly, I don't understand this phobia you've got of anything romantic."

The boy frowned in irritation. "It's not a _phobia_ ," he grunted. "I just don't see why people make such a song and dance over it. If you love someone, why wouldn't you just tell them instead of skipping around it with all this 'romance' stuff?"

Misty gulped, her pale face turning almost as red as her hair. Her best friend was not the deepest of people, so to hear him say anything remotely profound was always a shock to the senses, but this particular nugget of wisdom seemed alarmingly…relevant…to its recipient, and not in a nice way either.

"B-Because…" she began shakily, "because people, er, want to feel special, you know? Sometimes just telling them isn't enough; you have to show them, too."

"How would you know?" Ash probed. "You've never been in love."

Another awkward shudder pulsed through Misty's body, and she bit her lip to keep herself from gasping in surprise. By the way he said it, she could tell that Ash's question did not come from a malevolent place, but the words stayed with her nonetheless, taunting her in ways that the oblivious boy clearly had no understanding of.

Despite this, it seemed that Ash had, at least, picked up on her sudden silence. "Wait…" he started, his eyes widening, "have you?"

For some reason – perhaps the secret dishonesty of it or the fact that her stomach was currently onto its tenth nauseating somersault – Misty could not bring herself to voice her vehement denial this time. Instead, she simply leaned forward to grab the remote on the coffee table and aimed it straight at the TV, her eyelid twitching irritably with every violent click of the volume button.

"I told you," she snarled in an ominously low voice, "I'm trying to watch this. Go and find something to do if you don't want to stay here with me."

Though Ash was somewhat stunned by his friend's evasion of the question, he nonetheless did as he was told, slumping back into the seat and letting his eyes glaze over in front of the now excessively loud film. Misty remained visibly irked by the previous conversation, and tried her best to sink back into her fantasyland, but it seemed that her racing mind had other ideas, resulting in the occasional sigh or growl of annoyance from the young girl. After a few more minutes of tense silence, the programme cut to black and was replaced by images of hair products and smarmy-looking salesmen.

"Oh thank god, a commercial break," Ash said groggily as he stood up and stretched out his back. "I'm gonna hit the shower before bed."

"Uh-huh," Misty mumbled, only half-listening to him. Once he had vanished up the stairs, she sat forward and rested her chin tiredly on her arm. Pikachu seemed to sense her discomfort and tugged at her yellow shorts concernedly.

"Pikachupi?"

She smiled warmly down at the small electric mouse. "What am I going to do with him, Pikachu?"

As she scooped up the two small pokémon onto her lap, the advertisements came to an abrupt end, and she shifted her focus back to the film in an attempt to distract herself from the fluttering feeling in her chest. At the back of the room, a tall, tanned man leaned against the kitchen door, shaking his head in mock exasperation.

"You know Ash is an idiot, don't you?"

His question caused the unprepared Misty to jump in fright, and she whipped her head around so fast that her side ponytail almost hit her in the face.

"H-Huh?" she squeaked, having not fully taken in the words she had just heard.

He smirked slightly before continuing. "And idiots aren't exactly known to respond well to subtlety."

This time, she heard him perfectly. "Brock, what are you talking about? How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough." He chuckled. "Quite the interesting conversation you two were having, hmm?"

Misty instantly turned scarlet. "It's not what you think!" she insisted frantically. "I was just trying to educate him on something he knows absolutely nothing about!"

"So I could tell." He smiled as he made his way over to her. "But, to reiterate the first thing I said, Ash is, well, a bit on the hard-headed side, wouldn't you agree?"

Though she shot him a look as if to say, "Well, duh", she knew her older friend had to be going somewhere with this. "Yes, and in other news, the sky is blue. What's your point?"

"My point is he's never going to react to your little hints if you keep being so…hmm, what's the word I'm looking for… _delicate_ …with your answers."

A spark of panic appeared in the pit of Misty's stomach. Brock had better not be referring to _that_. "What do you mean?" she continued to play dumb. "Hints about what?"

Brock sat down beside her on the sofa and smiled across at her. It was a look that simultaneously conveyed notes of incredulity, humour and silent understanding.

"Are you really going to make me say it?"

Misty froze in place. Clearly, her attempts at subtlety had not extended to her pokémon breeder friend. He obviously knew – but that did not mean she was going to go down easy.

"It's not true!" she growled embarrassedly. "You've been saying this for years, and it's just…no! Ash and I aren't…y-you know! Aarrghhh!"

Brock had fully expected such an overreaction, but nevertheless shuffled cautiously away from his volatile young friend.

"Okay, okay, I believe you," he spoke calmly, trying his best to sound sincere. Misty simply huffed as she rested her cheek on the arm of the chair.

"But let's just say – hypothetically, of course – that you did feel, you know, _that_ way about him…why not amp it up a little bit?"

The gym leader sighed, knowing that she would probably regret uttering her next few words. "What are you saying?" she squinted at him suspiciously.

Brock's expression turned slightly more serious. "I'm saying that, from my experience, at least, if you want to teach Ash something, you can't be cryptic about it; you have to use total brute force."

He stood up from his seat and proceeded to mime along excitedly to his commentary. "You've got to saturate him in it, shove it right in his face, bludgeon the guy over the head with it until you finally get the point across! It's a technique I've perfected over the years, if I do say so myself.

"And romance is no different. If you want to get through to him, you've got to dial it up to eleven, baby! Woo the crap out of that little imbecile!"

Misty reached out and pulled the flailing Brock back down to the sofa with a soft thump. At the very least, his 'performance' had made her laugh.

"Brock, calm down." She giggled before adopting a sterner disposition. "No-one said anything about, erm, 'wooing' anyone here. All I was trying to do was teach him about the different ways people can express their feelings."

It was unclear whether or not he had listened to her, however, as he proceeded to speak again the second she had finished. "Picture this," he emphasised with dramatic hand waving, "a romantic dinner for two, followed by an evening of the cheesiest, soppiest, most worn-out romantic clichés in the book, knowing full well that he's never come across them before and won't know how they play out at all."

Picture it, she did, and the images made her feel weak at the knees. "Th-This is all still hypothetical, r-right?"

Yet, once again, Brock skipped right over her comments. "Ash would never consciously think about this sort of stuff, that much we know, but if you put the idea in his head by being completely over-the-top romantic around him, then that just might wake him up, don't you think?"

The more he revealed of his strange theory, the redder Misty's face became. In a certain light, what he was saying actually made a lot of sense. Although…

"What if it doesn't?" she asked without thinking.

"Then everything will just carry on as normal, I guess." He shrugged. "But isn't it worth a shot?"

"No, I meant…" Her blush intensified, and she looked down at the ground. "What if he doesn't feel the same way? Er, h-hypothetically, that is."

Though Brock was sure there was nary a chance in Hell of that being the case, he did not feel it proper to give the game away to the flushed redhead.

"Hypothetically, you shouldn't think that way. After all," he added with an impish wink, "I thought you said you were just in it to 'educate him'."

 _Dammit!_ Misty screamed internally. Over the years, she sensed that her efforts to cover her tracks had become sloppier and sloppier, and this was a prime example of that. She tried to hold in a frustrated growl, thinking that another outburst would only accentuate it, and redirected her attention to petting Pikachu and Azurill absentmindedly. Eventually, she turned slowly back towards her narrow-eyed friend, hoping to change the subject – at least, marginally – with her upcoming words.

"So…romantic clichés, huh?" she asked innocently. Brock nodded his head.

"Mhm. I'll bet you've got a ton of them in mind already." He smiled. "Ooh, ooh, you should do the wine trick!"

Misty dreaded to think. "The wine trick?" she inquired hesitantly.

"Yeah, it's a classic! You know, when you're drinking red wine and you move closer to him suddenly, and you get a spot of wine on his shirt. Then you're all, 'Oh my god, I'm so sorry, you'd better take that shirt off before it stains!' and he's like, 'Oh, don't worry about it, I'm sure it'll come out', so you splash the rest of the glass on him and go, 'Well, _that's_ not gonna come out', which is when he strips off and you go in for the-"

"Alright, alright, I get the picture!" the blushing teenager pleaded, trying her hardest to expel the images of such a scenario from her mind. Then, after she caught her breath, she managed to squeak out, "So, not including the, er, wine trick…do you really think this would work?"

"Probably not," Brock stated almost immediately after, the matter-of-factness of which made Misty frown in disapproval. "What?" he followed up. "I'm just being honest."

"Then what's the point?" she replied. "I might as well just go back to banging my head against the wall like I was before you came in!"

As Brock began to sense his friend's growing distress, he decided to lay off the playful tone in his voice.

"I'm not just saying all this to wind you up, you know," he reassured her with a friendly smile. "Even if Ash doesn't respond to anything you throw at him, the worst that can come out of this is that you'll get to spend a fun night with your best friend who you see maybe once a year at best. What have you got to lose?"

Misty pondered what he had said for a moment, idly picking bits of lint off her maroon top as she thought. "I…I guess," she finally said. "But why _are_ you saying all this stuff? Why do you care so much?"

The pokémon breeder feigned offence. "Is it so wrong for me to look out for my two bestest pals?"

After a light-hearted eye-roll from the young redhead, he smiled again. "In all seriousness, though, I've noticed you looking a little left out ever since Ash, May, Max and I came back to Kanto, and figured some more time alone with Ash might be just the ticket. Also, and don't kill me for saying this, but there's no telling when you'll next see each other after the end of this week, so don't you think you should take this chance to let him know about certain, um…things…before he leaves again?"

Misty absorbed his words with the utmost concentration, and although her first instinct was to mallet the bejesus out of him for his unashamed boldness, she also could not deny that he had, to her embarrassment, pretty much hit the nail on the head. Just then, the creak of a door followed by the soft thuds of footsteps sounded from the floor above them, creating a welcome but equally harrowing distraction from her inner conflict.

"Sounds like Ash is on his way back down," Brock remarked. "I'd better get back to helping Mrs. K out with the dishes."

She nodded limply, and the pokémon breeder hopped to his feet, shimmying through the gap between the coffee table and Misty's legs. A few strides towards the kitchen later, he turned back around to face his friend.

"So, are you going to ask him?"

A groan of both fear and annoyance escaped from the young gym leader's mouth. "I'll think about it," she muttered, then hastily added, "but ONLY as an experiment, you got that? It's not because I, you know…like him or anything…"

But Brock just grinned, chuckling to himself as he disappeared swiftly around the corner. Meanwhile, a revitalised, pyjama-clad Ash Ketchum came pattering down the stairs, making his way over to his previous spot on the sofa and plopping down next to his dazed best friend. Pikachu purred out a sleepy "Pikapi" before curling back up tightly against the soft cushion.

"Er, Mist, you know you're watching static right now, don't you?" he said, looking towards the hypnotising display of grey and black on the TV screen.

When she failed to answer, he waved a gloveless hand in front of her face. "Hello, Earth to Misty! You okay? You look like you've seen a gastly."

Shaking her head rapidly, Misty was suddenly plunged back into reality. "Huh? Oh, y-yeah, I'm fine."

Yet, despite her shaky affirmation, Ash remained staring at her. His deep brown eyes seemed to bore straight through her, and his mouth was slightly parted, a face that Misty had always found unbearably alluring. As the breath began to leave her body, she flicked her eyes briefly over to the side in the hope of regaining some semblance of self-control, but in that moment, her mind snapped suddenly back to hers and Brock's conversation of two minutes ago, and her mouth seemed to switch itself involuntarily to autopilot.

"Ash?" she murmured somewhat timidly.

"Yeah, Misty?"

"Do you maybe, erm, wanna have dinner together tomorrow night?"

"Uh, I thought we already were? I'm not leaving for the Battle Frontier until-"

"No, not like that," she cleared up, twirling a strand of orange hair coyly around her finger. "I meant, er, just the two of us."

To her surprise, the boy's face instantly contorted into a crooked smile. "Sure, Mist, sounds like fun!" He beamed. "We haven't done anything as a duo since we were travelling together; it'll be just like old times!"

She nodded warmly, all of a sudden feeling much better about this whole situation. Brock was surely right about one thing; getting to spend time alone with Ash was an opportunity that came by so rarely, and regardless of what form it happened to take, she would be a fool to pass it up. The pair slipped into a tranquil silence as Ash switched the TV over to something pokémon-related, and Misty allowed her mind to wander straight to the following night's potential 'activities'.

As a self-proclaimed romantic, she prided herself on her knowledge of hackneyed tropes and techniques, but which ones would be right for Ash? Though overdoing it was the whole point of this little experiment, Misty decided that there still had to be some level of order to the chaos, and so began to slowly map out a rough itinerary for the long-awaited evening with her secret love, all the while making sure to steal the odd glance at the person in question. Ash may have been as sharp as a slowpoke concerning matters of the heart for as long as she had known him, but maybe, just maybe, tomorrow night would change all of that.

A few feet away in the kitchen, two older figures stood over the sink, conversing pleasantly while they worked.

"So, how did it go?"

"You're never going to believe this, Mrs. Ketchum, but it seemed like she actually agreed to it."

"Really? Oh, how wonderful! I can't wait to get started on the preparations! However did you manage to convince her?"

"I don't think she needed that much convincing, to be honest. She might have been trying to hide it, but I got the feeling she was sold right from the get-go."

"Well, whatever the case, I'm sure it will be a valuable experience for the two of them. Do you think this will actually work, Brock?"

Brock stopped cleaning to stroke his chin. "No idea, but we've tried almost everything else. And, like I said to Misty just now..." he turned to his left, shrugging his shoulders, "it's at least worth a shot."


	2. Part Two

The following evening, the spritely sixteen-year-old Ash strolled down the dry dirt road leading away from the centre of Pallet Town, smiling when he saw the tiny outline of his house in the distance. It was approaching 8pm, and although the summer sun still shone brightly, soft notes of orange and red steadily began to wash across the cloudless sky, painting a mesmerising mix of colour above the rustic little town he called home. The setting was beautiful, awe-inspiring, amorous even – but, of course, the young pokémon trainer had little time for such things.

Ash had been saddened to learn that Misty would not be joining them on his next journey (not that he had expected her to, but he always asked anyway, just in case), and even more so when she declined his offer to visit the lab with him and the gang today. There were plenty of new pokémon he had been eager to show her, and a chance to battle her again was one he would never shy away from, but ever since last night, his best friend had been acting kind of strange: quiet, secretive, two things he had never known her to be. Then again, he knew that Misty could take care of herself, and convinced himself with a casual shrug that whatever was going on with her would probably end up working itself out.

Approaching the house, the boy noticed a curious yellowy orange glow emanating from the living room, causing him to raise an eyebrow. The sun had yet to set, so it was certainly too early for the lights to be on; perhaps it was just the TV, he decided to himself. As he continued on lightly through the front gate, Ash spotted a small piece of paper attached to the doorframe, displaying a short phrase in fancy, curly writing that he had to squint his eyes to read:

_Home is where the heart is…_

"What's that mean?" he mused to thin air before gently pushing the wooden door open.

The first thing he saw upon entering was a veritable minefield of candles littered around the borders of the room. Some were atop decorative candlesticks, while the larger ones stood freely on the floor. Their small flames flickered as he shut the door behind him, sending eerie shapes and shadows darting around on the ceiling.

"Hello?" he called out. "Anyone home?"

But it was at this moment that he laid eyes on another little note, this one folded up neatly at the foot of the stairs.

_And the quickest way to a boy's heart is…_

A smidgen of fear arose from within Ash's chest, but in reality, he was confused above all else. Just what was going on?

He made his way slowly up the stairs, stopping only to collect a third mysterious phrase near the top.

_Cold…_

And the further he edged along the landing, the more he began to detect a kind of theme:

_Colder…_

_Colder…_

_Cooooolder…_

The pokémon trainer stood still for a moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

"Definitely not feeling colder," he panted as he stepped out of a patch of sweltering sunlight.

Once he reached his bedroom, Ash kicked off his shoes and looked around, half-expecting there to be candles in there, too. Though the boy had never been particularly given to overanalysing, something about the furtiveness and ambiguity of these messages was making him feel slightly on edge, not to mention the fact that there was, as yet, no sign of the person who had left them. Just then, another familiar slip of paper caught his eye, taped to the back of his door.

_Sub-zero! Back down you go, Ashy!_

He barely even noticed the downwards-pointing Cupid's arrow underneath the writing, or even the hearts dotting the exclamation marks, as his own heart was now beating so fast that it practically drowned out his thoughts.

After quickly checking the remaining upstairs rooms, finding similar notes in each, he tore back down the stairs, looking around frantically once he reached the living room. It was then that his eyes travelled down to the floor, almost every inch of which was covered in red rose petals.

"Oh god," he whispered as his fears seemed to have been confirmed. He tiptoed slowly across the room, his breath becoming heavier with every step he made. Another note lay directly in his path:

_Warmer…_

Then another:

_Warrrrrmer…_

Then another, this one causing him to gasp:

_You're so close…_

Before he knew it, he had crossed the threshold into the dining room, but his eyes never left the floor. Something rustled a few feet in front of him, and his stomach churned out of both panic and anticipation, but he could not bring himself to look up just yet. On three, he subsequently decided, as he began to count upwards in his head.

_One…_

_Two…_

"Hi, Ash."

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Misty recoiled as her best friend's head shot up to meet her gaze. Sweat clung to his forehead, and all the blood drained from his face aside from a slight pinkness across the bridge of his nose.

"M-M-Misty?" he stammered breathlessly, almost falling on his back. "What the…er, a-are you…uhh…"

The confused girl took a step forward. "Ash, what's wrong? Why do you look so frightened?"

He beckoned her closer and held the side of his hand against his mouth. "Listen, Misty, we're not safe. I…" Ash began in a nervous whisper, "I think there's someone else here. They've been leaving all these creepy messages around the house, and they must have knocked a vase over or something 'cause there's bits of flower all over the floor, and, um, y-you…erm…I…uhhhh…"

But despite the apparent urgency of his spiel, the pokémon trainer felt his words dying away as soon as the sight before him sunk into his mind. Misty was wearing a pink, flower-patterned kimono tied with a red silk band around her waist, and her short orange hair was out of its ponytail, flowing elegantly down to just below her jawline. It was a look almost identical to the one she sported at the Maiden's Peak festival some six-and-a-half years ago, and, as he recalled, he had been just as captivated by it then, too. The colour returned to his cheeks with full force, coupled with a tingling heat that made him feel slightly dizzy. In his disorientation, the boy sure had seen a strange assortment of emotions over the last few minutes.

Misty herself was experiencing a similar ambivalence, though the exact components of hers were markedly different. Obviously, she had never imagined for a second that Ash knew the quickest way to his heart was through his stomach, but at the same time, she did not expect the dining room to be the absolute last room in the house he thought to check. After all, when was the boy not thinking about food? Secondly, and perhaps more alarmingly, did he just call her sentimental riddles _creepy_? Oh, he was going to get it for that. _Now, now, don't think that way_ , she quickly reminded herself, _Remember what Brock said: try to keep an open mind about this…_

At least he seemed to be looking at her with some sort of intrigue – unless he was just still petrified by his delusions of some mad axe murderer breaking in and performing ritual sacrifices in the candlelit living room. Either way, however, it was then that her mind stopped spinning and settled on one of her more immediate qualms.

"Ash…" she started, trying her best not to sound annoyed, "did you forget about our dinner tonight?"

The look on his face said it all. "Ohhhh…"' he croaked guiltily. "Y-Yeah, I, er, did, didn't I? Ehehe…"

"It's okay, Ash, I forgive you," Misty smiled shyly. "At least you're not late. Everything's still hot, I think."

As she twirled around to point out the long dining table behind her, the draft kicked up by her twisting motion blew an unknown scent in Ash's direction.

"What's that smell?" he asked through a nasal inhale.

"It's baby's breath." She gestured towards a vase of miniscule white flowers in the corner of the room. "They're my favourite. You like them?"

"Baby's breath? That's the name of the plant? I mean, it smells alright, I guess, but eww, what a disgusting name for it!"

The redhead exhaled slowly and calmly. _Patience, Misty, patience_. "Well, er, some cultures also call them _kasumi_ , I think…"

"Kasumi, eh? I suppose that's kinda pretty. I think I'll stick with that."

For some reason, this little comment caused Misty to blush. She, too, had always liked that name better.

"So, erm," she said, "shall we sit down?"

Ash nodded, and they both shuffled across to opposite ends of the meticulously decorated table. Atop a frilly white tablecloth was a medium-sized candelabra from which a few smaller candles radiated out, and another handful of rose petals lay scattered daintily around the display. Each of the two teenagers had before them a gleaming champagne flute (filled with orange juice, of course), an array of ornate silver cutlery, and a warm plate covered by a large metal cloche. While Ash immediately took his seat at the table, Misty remained standing behind her chair expectedly, and cleared her throat gently to get his attention.

"Ash," she said, her fingers crossed behind her back, "aren't you going to pull my chair out for me?"

The boy's brow furrowed. "Why? Is it stuck?"

 _Deep breaths_. "No…but it's a very gentlemanly thing to do for a lady."

"You, a lady?" he snorted. "That'll be the day, Mist! They don't call you the Tomboyish Mermaid for nothing, right?"

A fire began to smoulder within the young girl. She _hated_ that nickname her sisters had given her. The fact that Ash had called her Mist in the same sentence, however, all but evened her out.

"Doesn't matter," she sighed, sliding into her seat across from the oblivious pokémon trainer who was currently fascinated by the shiny metallic dome in front of him.

"I haven't seen these for ages," he remarked. "Mom only uses them for special occasions, or when there's someone important over. How about that, huh, Mist?"

Misty's cheeks flared again. She knew he did not mean it that way, but all the same, she could not help but feel a little hurt by his implication.

"Yeah…how about that…"

"Come to think of it, where is Mom? And everyone else, for that matter?"

"They, er, went to Gary's house," she quickly made up. "It's his mom's birthday, I think. And Brock took Azurill to play with the pokémon on the reserve."

He thought for a minute, and she silently prayed that he did not know otherwise. "Huh," was all he managed to say in response. "Well, rather them than me. Now, let's eat, I'm starved!"

With a small sigh of relief, the redhead watched her friend eagerly lift up his cloche, following suit soon after with her own. The action released a soft plume of steam into the air, and the ravenous young boy's face lit up at the sight of what lay beneath.

"Oh man, this looks awesome!" he gushed, eyeing the slab of perfectly seared venison on his plate. "And wait, are those croquettes? They're my absolute favourite!"

"I know." Misty beamed proudly.

"Just need to go get some ketchup…that is, if Pikachu's left any."

The girl's smile vanished as soon as it had appeared, replaced by a look of both horror and disgust. "Ketchup?!" she gasped. "With this? Are you insane?"

"What? I nearly always have ketchup on my food! Who do you think Pikachu takes after?"

"But it's…it's…"

'Undignified' was the first word that came into her head; 'uncouth' was the second, and both of those words could have summed Ash up to a T. While she repeatedly told herself that the point of all this was to try and introduce her friend to some of the finer things in life, she knew that she could never truly change his nature. She may have been his best friend, but she was not a miracle worker.

"Fine. Go on, then," she relented.

"Since when do you give up so easily?" Ash grinned somewhat confusedly. Deciding not to dwell on it, though, he promptly darted along the room to the kitchen, returning forthwith with the infernal red bottle in his hand. Just before he dug in, a streak of panic flashed across his eyes, and he quickly looked back up to face his friend.

"Hang on a minute…Misty, is this, er, I mean, did you…"

With a tired groan, Misty could instantly tell what he was trying to say. "No, Ash, I didn't make it, your mom did. It's perfectly safe. Thanks for the vote of confidence, though."

Ash just chuckled sheepishly, then predictably delved headfirst into his dinner, barely even chewing his first mouthful before greedily shoving in another. Misty had not expected much in the way of conversation from him while he was eating, as she had learned from experience that she would sooner interrupt a snorlax's meal than her best friend's; still, the sudden silence between them seemed awkward, unnatural for some bizarre reason, and this was something she had rarely, if ever, encountered before.

Although the young girl had been immensely flattered when Delia Ketchum had offered to give up her house for the night for this little 'experiment', and although the evening had just begun, Misty felt herself expressing some level of doubt over whether or not all of their efforts were worth it. When had she ever been uncomfortable around Ash? Why was she compromising with these clichés instead of ramming them down his throat like Brock said? And why, despite being rather hungry, was she now only picking at her lovingly prepared food? Everything had more-or-less gone to plan so far, but even so, as much as she tried to ignore it, something about this unique setting did not seem quite as…gratifying…as she had expected.

In an attempt to claw back some kind of enjoyment from this endeavour, Misty proceeded to jump right to the next bullet point on her mental checklist. "Ash, do you remember the day we met?"

Thankfully, the glutton across from her was mostly finished eating, and his head craned upwards to face her, a small trickle of gravy running down his face.

"Of course I do, Misty." He nodded. "It was the day I started my pokémon journey, and the day I met Pikachu, too. It was going so well until I ticked off that flock of spearow…"

"And just what do you mean by that?" she said in a half-playful, half-indignant tone.

Luckily for her, Ash caught on oddly quickly, and waved his hands in front of him in answer to her question. "Wait, no, I wasn't saying I regret meeting you or anything, Mist, it was just that Pikachu wouldn't have been injured if I hadn't- ugh, can I move this thing?"

The redhead's eyes followed his pointing finger to the candelabra in the middle of the table. "Why? I think it looks nice."

"But I can't see you!"

"Well, I'm sure you know what I look like by now," she sneered, rolling her eyes when she remembered she was supposed to be avoiding a fight tonight. "I mean, er, just sit up or something. Anyway, you were saying?"

Ash huffed a little, but carried on regardless. "Erm, well, you know the rest, don't you? We fell down the waterfall, and that's where you fished me out of the river and yelled at me."

"I _saved_ you, Mr. Pokémon Master," she corrected him. "Don't you think there's something really, I don't know, beautiful about us meeting that way?"

The young boy crossed his arms. "Pikachu was really hurt, Misty, and I think I'd swallowed about a gallon of river water myself. And, more importantly, my new Pokémon League hat got all wet! I'm not sure beautiful is the word I'd use."

"No, I didn't mean…okay, let me rephrase that."

She cleared her throat and began to wring her hands self-consciously. "I've always thought it was really nice – er, poetic, you know – for us to have gone from hating each other back then to being best friends now. Don't you agree?"

"Err…" Ash mumbled, "kinda, I guess."

Misty did not know what to make of this. "Kinda?" she repeated blankly.

"Hey, don't get me wrong, it's awesome that we're best friends now and everything, but, well, I don't think I ever actually, um, hated you when we first met."

"I…r-really?" she said, her stomach doing a backflip.

He pushed his empty plate away from him and leant his elbows on the table. "Oh, I probably should have. You could be pretty annoying when you wanted to be, Mist, and I mean _really_ annoying, to the point where I sometimes looked forward to us being thundershocked by Pikachu just so you'd shut up about that bike…"

"Is there a 'but' to this?" she interjected through gritted teeth.

"I was getting to that!" He laughed. " _But_ …in the end, I think I was just glad to have the company. I know you hated me at the start, but I could tell Pikachu liked you straight away, and, I dunno, something about that made me feel I could trust you. Then we started to get to know each other better and…well, it's like I said on the day you had to leave: I think we were always meant to meet and become best friends."

Misty was lost for words. Ash had never said anything so nice to her in the entire time she had known him, and it took all of her self-control to refrain from leaping across the table and tackling the boy to the ground in a bear hug. Perhaps her efforts to initiate a deep and sentimental conversation had not been completely lost on him after all.

"Th-Thanks," she wheezed, her face red from the sudden rush of emotion, "and I suppose…I never actually hated you either."

Ash appeared both shocked and relieved. "Well, you hid that pretty well." He smirked.

As she began to relax, Misty felt her appetite gradually returning, and turned her attention back to her previously abandoned dinner. It was only lukewarm now, but, as with all of Delia's cooking, the dish still remained as succulent and inviting as ever, and she quickly polished it off to a sarcastic round of applause from the grinning boy across the table.

"So, wise guy, you ready for dessert?" she purred in an equally sarcastic tone, the flirtatiousness of which she instantly regretted. A startling double entendre became apparent in the way she posed this easily misinterpreted question, and she found herself thankful, for the first time in the night, that Ash was as oblivious as he was.

"You bet!" he cried energetically, watching as his flushed friend skipped through to the kitchen and reappeared moments later carrying a large, circular glass dish, on which was…

"Double chocolate fudge cake…" Ash drooled, hypnotised by the tyre-sized confection that Misty placed a few feet away from him. "Wow, Mom really went all out on this, didn't she? And hey, what's that on the…is that us?"

Still standing next to him, the redhead looked down at the mass of different-coloured icing on the top of the cake, another shade of pink washing over her cheeks. The two shapes were nothing more than glorified stick figures standing side by side, except one was wearing a familiar red cap, while the other had short, orange hair tied up in a side ponytail, and although the crudity of the icing work made it difficult to identify exactly, their two arms closest to each other ran together into one amorphous splodge that seemed to suggest that they were holding hands.

"Er, yeah," Misty answered, her hands placed cutely behind her back. "Your mom let me help out with the icing part."

She briefly toyed with the idea of pointing out the pink heart shape encircling the two icing figures, unsure of whether or not he had noticed, but decided against it, instead proceeding to cut their two portions neatly out of the cake (two formidable doorstops, plus one generous scoop each of homemade vanilla ice cream; they were both still children at heart). Barely a minute later, Misty heard a rustling coming from Ash's direction, and tore herself away from her intoxicating dessert to look up at his chocolate-covered face.

"You okay, Ash?" she asked.

He met her gaze across the table. "Yeah, I'm fine." He smiled through a mouthful of fudge. "I was just, er, thinking, I guess."

"About…?" she started, before something in her field of vision caused her to growl. "Argh, dammit! Hold that thought."

Reaching forward, Misty carefully lifted up the candelabra in the middle of the table, twisted it around by a ninety-degree angle, and placed it back down to one side, giving the two teenagers a significantly better view of one another.

"You were right, that thing was totally in the way," she muttered. "Sorry, carry on."

Ash smiled slightly as he did just that. "Well, er, I was just thinking that it's a shame you can't, you know, come with us to the Battle Frontier."

Misty felt her face begin to heat up again, and she shovelled a large spoonful of ice cream into her mouth in an attempt to cool herself down (to little avail).

"It feels like I get to spend less and less time back home these days," he continued, "and that means we don't see each other all that much either. I know you've got the gym to look after, but still, it'd be nice to be able to travel together again, wouldn't it, even if it was just for a little bit?"

The redhead was powerless to stop her mouth from breaking out into an elated smile. She had been saving this particular gem until the perfect moment in the night, and since the topic was now in the air, she decided that this had to be it.

"Ash," she said, looking straight into his eyes, "what if I told you that the nearest Frontier facility is right next to Cerulean City?"

He said nothing, so she elaborated. "And what if I told you that I just might – and don't get your hopes up, I said _might_ – be heading back home at the same time that you guys set off for the Battle Frontier?"

 _I thought you said you were gonna ditch the subtlety, Misty_ , she groaned internally, _Just come right out with it…_

"Wait, so does that mean we'll be…" Ash beat her to it, and before she could confirm or deny his fragment of a question, the pokémon trainer had already sprung out of his seat and was practically jumping for joy.

"Alright! This is gonna be so fun! We'll be able to show May and Max all the places we camped out, and everywhere we trained, and had all those big fights, and-"

"Ash, sit down, you're going to give yourself indigestion!" Misty tried to sound stern, but in reality, she was even more ecstatic than he was. Being a gym leader was great, but nothing would ever top camping out under the stars with her best friends in the whole world.

Ash eventually slunk back down into his seat, still grinning from ear to ear, and, while their stomachs settled, the pair lapsed into another long silence, only, this time, it was not an uncomfortable one. Misty turned to her left to stare blissfully out of the dining room's sliding patio door, smiling every time a warm beam of sunlight passed over her slender body. Her attempts to get through to her friend thus far may not have gone exactly by the book, but she was pleased that she now, at last, seemed to be largely enjoying herself. In a way, she was unsure whether or not she should even continue with her carefully planned onslaught of clichés for fear that they would ruin this tranquil moment they were sharing; yet, the evening was still young, and there were still plenty of things to try out, and, as the young girl was quick to remind herself, such a precious opportunity would most likely never come around again.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Misty sighed absentmindedly, her sparkling teal eyes never leaving the sun-kissed landscape beyond the glass.

"Yeah," Ash replied as he too turned his gaze to the large window.

"I bet you see sights like this all the time on your journey, huh?"

Ash glanced over at his friend. Was there a hint of sadness in her voice? "Sometimes." He shrugged. "But there'll never be a better sight than home."

At that moment, the pokémon trainer and the gym leader locked eyes over the table. Neither said a thing, simply smiling peaceably as they watched the oranges and reds from outside dance across the other's face. Exactly how long they remained in this position, Misty could not say, but a light thud from Ash's hand on the table eventually served to snap her out of her impromptu reverie.

"Hey, I know!" he cried. "We should have a pokémon battle! The weather's perfect for it outside, and I could use a good run around after all that grub. What do ya say?"

"Sure! Let's g-"

But before the excited redhead allowed herself to finish that sentence, the familiar voice in the back of her head halted her train of thought with four simple but inescapable words:  _stick to the plan_.

"Actually," she corrected, causing Ash to stop walking towards the patio door, "I've got another idea. Come with me."

He grimaced in confusion as she began to head in the opposite direction. "In there? But what about our battle?"

"I promise, this will be just as fun. Come on."

She held out her hand for him to take, and although the boy was still unsure of what was going on, he slowly slipped his gloved hand into hers and allowed her to lead him over to the living room. Misty made sure to turn around quickly before he noticed the huge blush on her face; by comparison, the techniques she had employed up until this point had been but warm-ups – this next one was about to seriously up the ante.

 _I can't believe I'm doing this_ , she thought as they stopped in the centre. Letting go of his hand, she stepped lightly over to a CD player in the corner of the room and pressed 'play', whereupon the well-worn chords of a generic-sounding power ballad began to fill the house.

"Uh, what's going on?" Ash said quietly.

The still-blushing girl took a deep breath before making her way back over to him. "Okay, so if you put your left arm here," she pointed down to just below her red waistband, "and if I put mine somewhere around-"

"Wait, wait," he mumbled, a pink streak materialising on his tanned face. "Wh-What is all this? What are we d-doing here?"

"Dancing," she answered, attempting to cover up her own nervousness with a toothy smile. "Like we did at Maiden's Peak, remember?"

He gulped. "I don't remember it being like this…"

"Okay, well maybe it's a more…grown-up version. You trust me, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"Then there's nothing to worry about. Just follow my lead, okay?"

Just before they began, Misty looked over the intricate pose they were joined in, slumping her shoulders in thought. "Hmm, there's something missing…" She mused for a second or two before it hit her. "Oh, I know!"

In his befuddled state, Ash barely even registered his friend whooshing out of his tentative hold and skipping right back over to him after only the briefest of moments.

"Put this in your mouth," she said, holding up a small branch of the baby's breath plant.

Naturally, this only perplexed him more. "My mouth? Why?" he queried vacantly.

"Because it, er, looks…elegant," was the best she could come up with on the spot.

Shrugging, Ash took the twig from her and crammed the whole thing into his mouth, petals and all.

"No! Not like that!" Misty barked.

"Wow, that did not taste good at all," he coughed as he unfurled the soggy plant from behind his teeth and thrust it in the girl's direction.

"Eww, don't give me it!" she cried. "Just grip the stalk lightly with your teeth. You're not supposed to eat it!"

On his second attempt, the boy actually managed to achieve something vaguely resembling Misty's vision, but, contrary to her expected reaction, the redhead could not help but burst into a fit of giggles at such a ridiculous image. A diehard romantic she may have been, but it seemed that some things were too rich even for her blood.

"Right, forget the flower." She grinned as she gradually calmed down. "Put your hands back there again, and, here we go, as soon as this next section starts - now."

The song then transitioned into a lilting, anthemic chorus, and Ash and Misty slowly began to shuffle around on the spot, their arms around each other in the manner that Misty had demonstrated moments earlier: Ash's lightly on her waist, and hers resting on his shoulders. The two friends were about the same height now, and their proximity left them staring intently into one another's eyes, neither of them saying a word beyond the occasional "sorry" for stepping on each other's toes. Misty had purposely selected a song that had to do with missing a loved one, something she considered pointing out to her dance partner, but, regardless of whether or not it meant anything to him, the pleasingly poignant theme resonated greatly with the young girl, especially in the position she now found herself in.

Ash was holding her, and they were dancing…almost. She had fantasised about this scene for nearly as long as she had known him, and now it was finally happening. 'Maiden's Peak, Part Two' she had referred to it as in her head, a beautiful coincidence considering what she was wearing (she had been especially grateful to Delia for letting her borrow her old high school kimono for the night). Never before had the two best friends been so close; his hands were warm on her sides, and his shoulders moved up and down with every increasingly heavy breath he took. Misty's eyes travelled from one corner of the candlelit room to another, her face reddening further whenever she caught sight of one of her little romantic symbols scattered around the place. The atmosphere was perfect; the music was perfect; the company was perfect; everything about the heartwarmingly intimate setting seemed to be just as she had imagined.

Except, this did not feel natural at all. It felt forced, artificial, contrived, the realisation of which made the previously delirious girl feel sick to her stomach.

Ash looked extremely uncomfortable, and as much as Misty tried to stay in her blissful bubble of a few minutes ago, she could tell straight away that this discomfort was beginning to rub off on her. She did not understand: all the pieces were there, all the steps had been taken, but something about this shared experience was just not right. It felt unearned, as if she was cheating somehow, resulting in a painful lack of emotion and conviction that, for once, she could not blame solely on her partner. Of all the things she thought she would feel while dancing with the boy she loved, awkwardness was not one of them, and, suddenly, all the disheartened redhead could focus on was her instinctual desire to get out of this situation she had put the two of them in. As quickly as that thought appeared, however, another sharp pang of motivation hit her in the chest, urging her with an almost primal sense of determination to persevere. She had come this far already, and it would be beyond foolish to give up now. Perhaps a bit a variety would add some flavour to this otherwise lifeless routine.

"Ash," Misty spoke up softly, having waited until the first song gave way to another practically identical one, "this is where you dip me."

Unsurprisingly, the pokémon trainer had slipped into a trance of his own, and only when Misty repeated the statement did he abruptly snap out of it. "Dip you?"

She nodded. "You know, like in the movies, where you…"

Through a series of arm movements and contortions that appeared as if she were playing limbo, Misty attempted to mime the required action to her bemused friend.

"Err, okay," he eventually said, and, assuming that he had at least got the gist of what she was saying, the redhead shifted into position.

"So, when this next bit comes around, just lower me gently and- wait, no, not ye- AAAAHHH- OOF!"

Ever the cynic where Ash was concerned, she had always partly expected him to lose his balance and drop her to the ground mid-dip, but what she most certainly was not prepared for was for he himself to fall over immediately after, landing right on top of her. For a boy of almost seventeen, he seemed surprisingly light; yet, his weight was the least of the young girl's worries, as she now found herself staring straight up at his tanned, blushing face, only centimetres away from hers. She could feel his warm breath on her cheeks, prompting her eyes to wander downwards thereafter to his slightly parted lips. They looked so soft, so inviting…how easy it would be right now for her to tilt her head upwards, even just by a little, and all the wondering, all the ambiguity surrounding this night and its activities would be at an end. Needless to say, she did not do that, choosing instead the safer and more practiced technique of kneeing the poor boy in the groin.

"Get off me!" she barked defensively, stumbling to her feet in a dizzying state of embarrassment while Ash writhed limply around on the floor in pain.

"Urrghhhh," he groaned as the unpleasant sensation shot all around his body. "What did you do that for?"

"You fell on me, you big idiot, why do you think?!" She glared down at him crossly.

After another minute, Ash had managed to slide up the wall to a standing position and was making his way over to the CD player in the corner.

"What are you doing?" inquired Misty.

He removed the disc and replaced it with one from the rack beside him. "I dunno about you, but I feel like a change of pace."

She opened her mouth to probe the matter further, but was cut off by the CD player bursting to life with a lively and fast-paced dance track. It was pokémon-themed, of course, as with virtually everything else her friend concerned himself with, but the perplexed redhead had scarcely the time to roll her eyes before she felt Ash grab a hold of her hands and whisk her over to the large, open space between the kitchen and the front door.

"This is real dancing, Mist!" he cried, a look of childlike enthusiasm in his eyes. "Let's let loose a bit, eh?"

"Ash, I'm not sure I- whoooaaa!"

Startled by the swift change in ambiance, Misty had forgotten that her hands were still in his, and was caught completely off guard when the boy suddenly pulled her into a playful sequence of improvised steps and twirls.

"Hey, don't leave me hanging here, Mist, get involved!" Ash laughed as he moved their joined arms back and forward like pistons in time to the music.

In one swift move, Misty yanked her hands out of his hold and took a step backwards. "No!" she shouted over the relentless beat. "Stop, you're not…er, I mean, this isn't-"

"Isn't what? Fun enough? Complex enough? Well, Miss Waterflower, I accept your challenge!"

Turning his body around to face her, Ash raised his arm above his head, swinging it around as if twirling a lasso, and lurched it forwards towards his intrigued friend, grinning as he attempted to reel her in with his imaginary rope. His mischievous smile grew wider with each subsequent movement, and, despite her efforts to remain neutral, the whole act made Misty laugh uncontrollably.

"Ooh, we've got a fighter, here!" Ash hollered in an exaggerated Wild West accent. "Better give in soon, Mist, I'm nearly at the end of my rope!"

 _Oh, believe me, so am I_ , she thought with an internal sigh. As funny as she found his juvenile persistence, it was getting harder and harder to ignore the harsh whine of her pesky inner voice imploring her, once again, to get her head back in the game. This was not how their dancing was supposed to go. The fairytale atmosphere she had been trying to create was gone, and the music was about as far from romantic as one could get. And yet, she could not stop giggling at his antics. _What's happening?!_ she shouted in her head.  _No, no, no, this isn't what you wanted! Stop enjoying yourself right now!_

But it was no good, and before she even realised it, Misty had leapt right back over to Ash's side, dancing and laughing wildly along with him until they settled into their own unique, synchronised rhythm. Though absolutely the most off-piste her itinerary had been so far in the night, something about this simple interaction seemed purer, more honest, and, reluctant as she was to admit it, more enjoyable than anything else that had happened up until that point. A growing sense of frustration seeped into her happiness and excitement when she began to wonder just what it was she wanted out of this evening – and if she had ever known in the first place.

"Hey, Mist, check this out!" she heard Ash say, a mere second before he jumped forward and grabbed her hands again.

"Wh-What are you doing?" Misty gasped, blushing again from the contact.

But she got her answer just moments later, as soon as the pokémon trainer started to spin her around in a circle.

"Bet I can last longer without getting dizzy than you can!" he smirked across their outstretched arms at her.

Misty shook her head in disbelief. Was that boy ever going to grow up? At the same time, though, a challenge was a challenge, and she had never turned one down yet, least of all from him.

"Not a chance!" she spat back at him in a manner both jovial and irritable.

Round and round they went, gradually getting faster and faster, yet the two teenagers' eyes never left each other's during their latest head-to-head.

"Ash, we're getting quite close to the…" Her head gestured to the candles around them on the floor.

"Hey, quit trying to distract me!" He laughed.

Her foot skimmed past a nearby candlestick. "I mean it, Ash, we should mo- aaahh!"

Before she could finish her sentence, Misty's heel knocked against the base of the tall, metal pole, and she stumbled backwards along the edge of the adjacent bench, breaking the arm lock with her surprised best friend.

"Misty, look out!" Ash cried. Inevitably, though, he was too late, and the redhead went toppling down onto her behind, taking a few of the freestanding candles with her. Thankfully, the flames blew themselves out before they could reach the floor, but several of the larger wax cylinders began to leak almost instantly, their molten contents gushing out all over the carpet.

"Urghm," Misty grunted, rubbing her bruised side.

"Are you alright?" Ash called down to her as he made his way over.

"Well, I'm not dizzy," she snarled, her disgruntled voice dripping with sarcasm.

He grinned slightly. "I guess we'll call it a draw this time."

As he pulled the grumbling Misty up by her hand, she turned to the side to inspect the damage. "Oh man, look at all the wax on the floor! Mrs. Ketchum's going to be really mad; we'd better clean this up."

Ash nodded, heading straight to the kitchen in search of paper towels, while Misty got down on her knees and proceeded to prop up the candles she had knocked over. The last one was a little heavier than the others, requiring her to use both hands, but in doing so, her balance shifted suddenly, and the candle wobbled in her precarious grasp, spilling hot wax all over her left hand.

"EEEEEEEEK!" she yelped, dropping the candle back to the ground.

"What? What happened?" Ash popped his head around the kitchen door. The second after, a pink and orange shape whooshed past him, and he turned around to see his friend sloshing cold water onto her red, wax-covered hand, whimpering in pain and discomfort.

"Oh my god, how did you do that?" he asked, shocked.

She did not answer, keeping her back to him as she bent over the sink. "Misty, are you okay?"

Concerned, he shuffled over to her and extended a hand out in front of him, letting it hover above her right shoulder for a second or two. As soon as it made contact, the terrifying growl that shot out from the explosive redhead left him instantly regretting this decision.

"THAT'S IT!" she shrieked, a culmination of all of the bottled-up frustration she had tried until now to ignore. "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Ash stepped back as her fiery eyes met his. "Wh-What do you mean? Can't take wh-"

"I've spent all night trying to inject a bit of culture and sophistication into you, Ash Ketchum! I hoped that, maybe, just maybe, I could turn you into something close to a gentleman tonight, but you know what? You're hopeless! You haven't responded to anything I've done or said this whole time! God, I don't know why I ever thought this would work! So you can stay a dense, hardheaded little kid your whole life for all I care, because I'm done with this, you hear me?! I quit!"

Not giving the boy a chance to question her rant, Misty submerged her seething hand in a glass of water, then flung open the door to the back garden and slammed it shut behind her.

Ash was unable to move for a few moments, struck dumb by the confusing monologue he had just been subjected to. Misty was no stranger to losing her temper – he knew that better than most – but he had rarely seen her so…upset before. Deciding that she probably needed some time to herself, he quickly located the paper towels and headed back over to the living room to tend to the waxy mess on the floor.

Outside on the patio step, Misty stared glumly across at the vast rural expanses of Pallet Town, her head resting against her good hand. The sky was a rusty orange now, and faint traces of stars could be seen poking through the thick and enveloping sunset. Romantic was the perfect word for it – spitefully so, in fact – but after her spontaneous meltdown and subsequent retreat, she was all too aware by now that that ship had well and truly sailed. Not even Brock's wine trick could save her now.

She had not meant to take her frustrations with the night out on Ash. It was not his fault, after all, that she had expected the impossible from him. Her real sadness was rooted in disappointment: not with Ash, and not with herself, but with the very romantic tropes she was supposed to adore. Virtually none of them had satisfied her like she thought they would, and she did not have a complete answer as to why. With a heavy sigh, she turned her gaze to the grass beneath her feet in silent dejection. Some romantic she was.

Another ten minutes of sombre rumination passed before Misty heard her friend softly calling her name from behind her. Though she did not answer or turn around to face him, the boy walked forward and sat down beside her on the warm wooden step.

"I, er, brought you a cold cloth for your hand," he said somewhat shyly. Once again, though, the sullen girl did not budge.

"Can I…?" Ash persisted, moving the cloth towards her hand in the glass. Just as it was about to touch her skin, she jerked her arm out of his reach.

"Don't, Ash, just…don't," she whispered, her voice practically devoid of emotion.

An unwelcome silence then took hold of the two friends, one which neither was quite sure how to break. After about a minute, Ash let out a large, dramatic, almost fake-sounding yawn, emphasising the point by stretching his arms up into the air. Misty watched the bizarre scene out of the corner of her eye long enough to grunt in annoyance, and had just barely returned to staring at the ground when she suddenly felt an arm snake its way over her shoulders.

"What do you think you're doing?" she snapped at him, her voice wavy from the nervous shiver she performed in mid-sentence.

Ash looked over at her, a distinct redness in his cheeks. "I…I think it's called 'the move'.

Misty's already profound blush intensified tenfold. "'The move'?" she repeated incredulously.

"Yeah. Brock said it's the perfect thing to do at a time like this."

"Brock said…what? What are you…"

But her words came to a deathly halt as soon as his sunk in. This could not possibly have been a coincidence…

With his arm still around her (he was extremely surprised that she had not shaken him off yet), he shot a rather guilty smile in her direction. "I'm going to be honest with you, Misty; I spoke to Brock this morning when we were training and he, well, kinda gave me a heads-up about the, er, purpose of tonight."

And just like that, her worst fears had been confirmed. There was no point in trying to deny it now, and all she could think to do was spit out the first thing that came to her mind. "I am going to kill that man…"

She thought about running away, pushing him off and heading straight for the hills, but somehow, she felt that would only make things worse. Instead, she remained there, borderline catatonic in the arms of her now worryingly enlightened best friend. The silence was undeniably awkward, but it seemed safer than carrying on this conversation, which, to her horror, Ash did moments later.

"So…you like me, huh?"

The gasping sound that Misty made was almost enough to shatter glass. How in the world was she supposed to answer that? And, more importantly, how did he know? A sickening thought occurred to her in that moment:  _Oh, he did NOT…_

"And I suppose Brock told you that as well, did he?!" she exclaimed in an unmistakeably hostile tone.

"Nope." He shrugged. "I figured that one out myself."

Misty felt like screaming, crying and throwing up at the same time, yet still could not bring herself to break away from him. His arm was warm around her neck, providing her with a small sense of comfort atop her more disturbing issues.

"Great," she muttered, more sadly than angrily.

Scratching his head with his free hand, Ash took in a small breath and quietly mumbled, "It's, um, okay if you do, you know."

"Huh?" she uttered dazedly. "Wh-Why would you say that?"

He cleared his throat and looked down at the ground. "Well, uh, what if I…I, erm, like you, too?"

"Wh-What?" she stammered, her heart beating at an uncontrollable rate.

Ash turned to face her. "I…think I like you too, Misty."

The flustered girl could not believe what she was hearing. Was Ash actually saying he liked her back? Though not exactly the fairytale confession she had envisioned, the feeling of hearing him say those long-awaited words was almost too good to be true.

"Do you…mean that?" she said at just above a whisper.

He nodded. "I don't think I properly understood until I came back from Hoenn yesterday. I've always thought of you kinda differently to my other friends, Mist, and not because you're a girl, because I don't think about May like this at all. When I saw you again, I realised how much I'd missed you, and I just, I dunno, remembered how much I like being with you. We're best friends, yeah, but a part of me has always felt closer to you than that, and now I think I might finally know why."

"Wh-Why didn't you say anything before?" she managed to pant airily, still not quite believing this was happening.

"I guess it's like I said last night: I don't really see the point of all this romance and 'courting' and whatever else you were talking about, but, if nothing else, tonight did kinda get me thinking about things, and I just felt like, once I was sure how I felt, I should just come right out with it."

After hearing such an honest statement from her closest friend, Misty suddenly felt both ashamed and embarrassed. All this time, and she could have just told him instead of delaying the inevitable with subtle hints and pompous romantic gestures.

"I know you went to a lot of effort to make tonight really special," Ash added, "and I'm sorry I didn't understand much of it the way you wanted me to – like not putting ketchup on venison, what's up with that? And hey, what was with all those weird messages when I first came in? They _really_ freaked me out."

Misty blushed sheepishly, her demeanour gradually softening as she relaxed. "I, er, guess some things work better in the movies than they do in real life…"

"But the truth is, I had a really good time tonight, Mist, and not because of the food or the candles or anything like that, but because I got to spend time with my best friend. That's all I could ever ask for."

The redhead's eyes began to well with tears, and she instinctively allowed her head to slip down onto his shoulder. "Really?" she asked.

He smiled at the tickling feeling of her hair against his cheek. "That stuff just isn't me, Misty. And, if your face most of the night was anything to go by, I don't think it's really you, either."

To his surprise, the girl on his shoulder let out a soft giggle. "I'm still a romantic, Ash…but you might be right. Maybe I don't like some of those things as much as I thought I did."

"But when we were talking after dinner, and dancing – er, the second time, that is – those were the best bits of the whole night, because we just acted like we always do, like really, really close friends.

"I'd rather we were just ourselves, you know? When I'm with you, I don't need to put on any special act or anything, and that's how it should be, just two people who really know and trust each other. We don't need any of that fancy romance stuff because, well, I've always thought this is great just the way it is."

As he finished his piece, Misty's head moved back upwards, and she stared straight into the eyes of the boy she loved, teal meeting hazel in the most intense and focused of gazes.

"Thank you, Ash," she eventually said. "I agree completely. I love that I can be myself around you, and I'm, er, sorry I forgot how important that was tonight."

But Ash just smiled in his trademark lopsided fashion. "Don't worry about it, Mist. Like I said, I didn't really get most of it anyway."

They both laughed as Misty's head sunk back down onto Ash's shoulder, and their arms slowly wrapped around each other's waists. It was a simple, yet intimate embrace, not too much and not too little, the perfect balance for two old friends who were just beginning to explore the depths of their relationship. A short and peaceful silence elapsed before Misty heard the pokémon trainer speak up again.

"Misty?"

"Yes, Ash?"

"Do you think we're made for each other?"

The redhead let out another sharp gasp of surprise. Never would she have expected something like that to come out of Ash's mouth.

"I, er, y-you…what makes you say th-that?" she stuttered in shock.

His mouth formed a contented grin. "Because we're the only ones who can put up with each other."

First came a giggle, then a warm smile, followed by a blush so fierce that she wondered if Ash could feel the heat coming off it.

"You know," she began in a kind of flirtatious tone, "for someone who claims not to know anything about 'courting', as you put it…that was pretty darn romantic."

"It was? Well, er, anytime, I guess."

Against the backdrop of the immaculate Pallet Town sunset, the two smitten teenagers fell quiet yet again, holding onto one another as they looked contently over at the idyllic horizon. Misty was quite positive that she had never been so happy in her whole life, despite the fact that her carefully mapped out evening had not gone remotely to plan. She thought about the wealth of clichés she had never had the chance to try out: there would be no making wishes on shooting stars, no ponyta ride through the expansive pastures of her friend's hometown, no beautiful twilight stroll to the river where they met; but that was okay. Ash was not a gentleman by movie standards, and theirs was far from a typical storybook romance, but she liked him, and he liked her, and that was all she had ever wanted. Romance be damned.

"So, how about that battle now?" she piped up enthusiastically.

Ash was surprised, to say the least. "Really? But what about your hand?"

The hand in question surfaced from the glass at her side, and she shook the water off in his face childishly. "It doesn't hurt as much now. Besides, I throw with my right, remember?"

"Course I remember." He grinned. "So, how's three-on-three sound?"

"You're on, Mr. Pokémon Master!"

Yet, just as they took their places at opposite ends of the garden, Misty came bounding back over to Ash, stopping just before she bumped into him.

"Sorry, I almost forgot."

Reaching forward, the gym leader sunk her hand into the front pocket of Ash's hoodie and pulled out a small, folded up slip of paper.

"What's that?" he asked, his head cocked slightly to the side.

Misty took a small step away from him and opened up the message she had slipped into his jacket during their dance earlier. A fresh blush adorned her face when her eyes skipped over the small but powerful words emblazoned on the delicate parchment. The little three-word sentence was, indeed, the ultimate cliché, one she fully intended on exploiting one day, but after the events of the last half hour or so, the redhead quickly came to the conclusion that such a thing need not be rushed. Ash was not ready to receive something like this just yet, but that no longer bothered her like it used to, and as she neatly folded up the paper and tucked it away in her waistband, a passing glance at her beloved pokémon trainer assured her beyond any doubt that, when the time came, she would be more than prepared.

"It can wait."


End file.
